Merna started up with a subdued exclamation, and before she realized it she was smiling up into his laughing face.
How often she had thought of this meeting—if he should return—and pictured to herself the cool, indifferent air with which she would greet him; instead, she was laughing and chatting as merrily as though there had been no break in their intercourse.
He resumed precisely his former position; he made just the same vague, intangible allusions, without one word upon which to place a hope securely. Merna seemed plastic in his hands—and what was there to resist, or to resent? Nothing—perhaps; yet Merna lost her healthful calm, and grew restless and irritable; one cannot successfully resist the intangible, or do battle with the wind. His alternate tenderness, and good-natured indifference filled her with restless longing; she wished that he would be more explicit, or go away and leave her alone; she thought resentfully that it was unjust that because of her sex she must utter no word to further her own happiness; and because custom ordered it, she must take the crumbs offered to her, or go altogether hungry; she must have no voice in shaping her future beyond an assent or denial. Oh, yes; to be sure! There are a thousand ways in which a woman may signify her preference, but it would be very shocking if she should put it into words, unless the man asked her to do so! It looks for all the world like putting a premium upon intrigue.
Her girlish friends exchanging confidences, rallied her about her beau: “Oh, Merna, when are you going to be married?”
“Just as soon as I can find a man who will marry me,” retorted she, but she flushed painfully.
“Oh don’t cheat! Tell us all about it!”
“There is nothing to tell,” replied Merna looking distressed.
A wild chorus of dissent greeted this reply; as soon as possible Merna slipped away to cry out her grief and mortification. She thought that every one of them was laughing at her because of her uncertainty regarding her lover.
Ned certainly had no such feelings; he took everything for granted in a laughing, off-hand way, not to be resisted; he came continually, he monopolized her completely; he spoke to her, and of her as belonging to him, but always in that laughing way which left the impression of a joke; he did not say, such a day we will be married; such a place will be our home; he said instead: “You belong to me; you could not get away from me if you tried; I should find you, I shall always know where you are.”
This was all very sweet, but—very unsatisfying. He was strong, masterful, laughingly dominant; but he was also either very thoughtless, or very secretive.